Based in rural Minnesota, Brian Burgess worked in IT for 10 years before finding his passion for writing about consumer technology.
Brian earned his degree in computer and network technology in 2000. He held various IT positions, including help desk support, router installations for IBM, database administration, and other associate network administration roles.
He's been a personal technology journalist for 18 years and has written thousands of articles about Microsoft products and services, Android, iOS, streaming, and more. He has written for notable tech sites including XDA, InformationWeek, How-To Geek, Byte, groovyPost, and others.
When he is away from the keyboard, you will hear him playing guitar, working outdoors, and watching Star Trek.
As storage costs rise, buying a new drive or two and adding them to a server is less convenient than it used to be. I've learned that over the years, as my media collection grows, this has become more of a problem. I've been in a storage pinch and even revived an old server with OpenMediaVault to add media storage for Jellyfin.
But I've also used other cost-effective methods to free up space without deleting movies and shows. Even if your server or NAS isn't bursting at the seams, you can reclaim gigabytes of storage and make room for more movies and shows with these options.
Clear server cache and other junk
Jellyfin creates a cache of files and folders that build up
One of the most straightforward ways to free up space on your server without touching a single media file is to clear the Jellyfin server's cache. Like your browser, PC, or laptop, Jellyfin builds up a cache of temp files and metadata folders over time. The Trickplay feature alone (if you use it) leaves a lot behind. If the server is doing a lot of transcoding, files from that also build up over time.
You can clear it with Jellyfin's built-in maintenance tasks. I cleared the cache and transcodes folders to clean up a nice chunk of space. I'm guilty of not doing this regularly enough, so I'm surprised I'm running out of space. Trickplay leaves behind too much cached data for my liking, so I turned it off. I never use it anyway.
I also figured this was a good time to get rid of all the extras, special features, and behind-the-scenes files I had. I tend to watch those once, and that's it. I went through my library and removed all the extra media files I didn't watch. Those files were just taking up space. I was tempted to create an "extras" directory, but I decided against it. I also removed DVD and Blu-ray files for content I don't need to see. If I really want to watch them, I can put the disc in.
Reduce large file size without sacrificing (much) quality
Re-encoding media files may sound like a long, arduous process, but it doesn't have to be, and it can also save gigs of space. If you have several movies and shows encoded in H.264 like older 1080p remuxes, consider re-encoding them with a modern AV1 or HEVC codec. But I will caution that not all devices support AV1 decoding, so make sure to check that. Otherwise, you'll add to your server's workload by constantly transcoding files. For example, the Google TV Streamer supports hardware AV1 decoding, but the Nvidia Shield doesn't.
My 1080p Blu-ray rips were perfect candidates for re-encoding from the older H.264 codec. They were huge files, and encoding them in AV1 or HEVC reduced their size with minimal quality loss. Of course, results will vary, and I recommend testing a few re-encodes before going all in. Some movies will show a drastic drop in quality depending on the encoder, content, and original settings.
Also consider the time and resources it will take to re-encode a large library. That will also vary based on the number of files and your hardware configuration. You don't have to do it all at once if time isn't a factor. But I've used tools like Unmanic and Tdarr to re-encode entire libraries and reclaimed nearly 40% of storage, and the video quality isn't noticeable from my normal viewing position.
Still, it allowed me to reclaim gigabytes of space. It was also a good way to go through my library and decide whether I really needed lossless remuxes of an entire season of a show I rarely watch, taking up drive space. I re-encoded shows to lower bitrates and could view them in full HDR by watching the discs instead.
Remove unneeded audio
Ditch excessive space-hogging tracks
I'll admit that when I first started ripping Blu-ray discs years ago, I wasn't entirely sure what I was doing. I ended up with extras and commentary tracks for movies and shows that I didn't want. Another early mistake was leaving too many audio tracks in my media files. I never went back to correct them. You might not think much of it, but a lossless surround audio track can take up 1-5 GB or more. Then times that by 10 or 100 rips, and you're looking at some serious server space that can be reclaimed. Removing audio tracks saves space without re-encoding the media file and losing picture quality.
I went back to a few of my early rips and found high-quality surround-sound tracks sitting unused in my files. I try to keep up by manually deleting the extra tracks with MakeMKVToolNix. I keep one high-quality audio track in my language only and remove the rest. Leave the track that matches your setup. For instance, a 7.1 surround-sound track can be quite large, whereas a 5.1 or stereo track is smaller. You can also remove extra tracks across your entire library at once with a tool like Tdarr or by scripting FFmpeg to batch-remove unwanted audio.
An economical solution to a Jellyfin storage crunch
When my server's storage space gets tight, I definitely don't want to resort to deleting the movies and shows I watch. Storage is expensive now, and the outlook doesn't look promising. So, making do with what I have is a frugal step. The prices make me think twice about how much I want to spend. If I can do more with less without sacrificing my media library, I'm happy.